Ask Others to Pray

I have very sad news, via Jeffro. Leah Friedman’s friend Mish Weiss is not doing well, and she claims she wants to be allowed to die. She has acute myeloid leukemia, she has gone from 125 pounds to 90, and she is very depressed.

I you don’t remember Leah, she’s the girl in Jerusalem who went into respiratory arrest a while back. She had a heart condition, and somehow that is the cause of what happened. I asked my readers to pray for her, and so did other bloggers, and she has recovered well, although she still has some paralysis and some lingering mental symptoms.

Mish is in the IDF. She likes to shoot. She’s a vegan, which is probably unfortunate at this moment, when her body needs so much help. But she refuses to sacrifice her principles.

The situation is a little confusing. I don’t know much about this disease. Wikipedia paints a discouraging picture, but a post on Mish’s blog says the treatment she took works about 60% of the time, so cures do occur.

I have gone over her blog. If I understand the situation correctly, chemo didn’t work, so they are treating her with arsenic. That causes a lot of problems; it’s a poison, after all. From what I’ve read, it’s not clear that the treatment isn’t working. It may be that it’s so unpleasant, she no longer cares whether it works, and she simply wants to quit.

It’s not clear who wrote the last post on her blog, but here is how it ends: “All of you who have faithfully followed please pray for strength we certainly need it. And for us to make the right decisions.”

Here is what I ask. Pray that the treatment will work. Pray that she will find the strength to bear it. Pray that her loved ones will find ways to help. And pray that her relationship with her creator is right, at this pivotal time. And if you have a blog, pass the word.

And go to Mish’s blog and leave an encouraging comment! Let her know people are thinking of her, far away in America.

It’s late on Friday; it will be hard to get observant Jews in on this. Christians, pitch in!